


Desperate, a Little Delusional

by la_dissonance



Category: Bandom, Empires
Genre: Catharsis, Gen, Impact Play, Kinky Gen, Painplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-11
Updated: 2012-03-11
Packaged: 2017-11-01 19:37:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/360474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_dissonance/pseuds/la_dissonance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>bb Empires kinky gen! Because some of the songs on Howl are downright DISTURBING. Also because I spent all of Friday evening reading through the Empires tag on ao3 and apparently this is what comes of that.</p><p>Now with <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/395364">podfic</a> by <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/lalejandra/pseuds/lalejandra">lalejandra</a>!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Desperate, a Little Delusional

**Author's Note:**

> Other content: Undernegotiated D/s elements, Sean's head being a dark, dark place.
> 
> Many thanks to bohemeyourself for the beta! Any remaining mistakes are my own.
> 
> I have no idea what the actual writing/recording timeline was for Howl so I just made shit up. I did not make up the pain game; that is an actual thing in the world, as Butcher [recently informed us](https://twitter.com/#!/animalupstairs/status/177115412910182401) on his twitter.

The first time they do it is before the band is even more than a vague shape in the future, when it was just the two of them and a couple of guitars and a lot of ideas in a dingy apartment with no heat.

"Do I want to do what?" Sean asks, giving the pan of rice a stir. He definitely added too much water; the individual grains look fully cooked but it's still all soupy around them.

"Do you want to play a game," Tom repeats, in a bored monotone.

Sean hasn't really been paying attention to Tom since he wandered into the kitchen to get a drink, preoccupied with getting the rice not to overboil, and he's only listening with half an ear now. Maybe if he ladles out some of the extra water, or just moves all the rice into a different dish with a slotted spoon... "I'm kind of busy right now," he says. "Do we have a slotted spoon?"

"It doesn't have to be right now," Tom says. "After you eat's good."

"I'm not really in the mood for a game," Sean says, frowning. It looks like they might not have a ladle either.

"It's not that kind of game," Tom says, stopping short of an explanation.

Sean gives him a look; if he's going to start talking he might as well keep talking.

Tom sighs and hands Sean a soup spoon from the drawer behind him. "Here, I think this is the biggest we have. It's called the pain game? We used to play it on the bus sometimes."

Sean makes a noise of thanks and doesn't acknowledge any of the other stuff Tom just told him. They've hardly talked about TAI stuff since Tom got back, not directly; it's weird to have it thrown into conversation so casually. Sean starts slowly spooning the extra water into the sink and tries not to think of what kind of game _the pain game_ is or where Tom's sudden interest in playing it could be coming from.

Tom leans out of the way when Sean reaches around him for a clean bowl, then just watches as Sean adds soy sauce and off-brand Sriracha to the bright white mush and digs around in the silverwear drawer for a fork. Usually they're both pretty in tune with each other's moods, and Tom's good at staying out of Sean's way when he gets all pissy and on-edge like he's been feeling lately. His continued presence now feels like a giant flashing demand in neon letters, even though he's not saying anything.

"So," Tom says, after following Sean over to the couch and waiting a reasonable amount of time for him to finish eating.

Sean sighs. "This had better not be some crazy Fight Club acid-on-hands shit."

"No, whoa, no," Tom says. "Andy came up with it. Mostly you just hit each other a lot and whoever can hold out the longest wins."

"Well, that's reassuring," Sean says. He can vaguely, maybe, see the appeal of such a game, if he were drunk and it was loud and he had something to prove. Now, though, he just feels tired and wrung out from too many nights spent awake, hiding from that blank time before sleep when the images that are too terrifying to write down turn into something too fascinating not to turn over and over in his head. What he needs is some way to write it all down that makes it _less_ real instead of more, and sitting around playing stupid teenage machismo games with Tom isn't going to get him any closer to that point.

"It's a kind of high," Tom says, letting the "and we're too broke to buy weed" go unspoken. "Andy always said it helped get him out of his head, or focus in, or I don't know. Never did that for me, but you still get to hit things and get buzzed on endorphins, so like." Tom shrugs.

Sean thinks he's going to get up and walk away until he stands and what comes out of his mouth is, "So what do you do, just start hitting each other?"

Tom stands too, and matter-of-factly unbuckles his belt and steps out of his pants. "You have to be wearing just your underwear, and you have to take turns. And then you pretty much just hit each other, yeah."

"This is the worst game ever," Sean says, but he strips anyway because he can't get the way Tom had casually said "You get to hit things" out of his head. Hit things, like his best friend. Hit _people_ , hit someone again and again on purpose to make them hurt. The idea comes too close to all the dark things that keep him up at night to leave it alone; if he backs out now this would probably just turn into one more thing to obsess over.

Tom bends down and unthreads his belt from the loops of his discarded pants, and after a second Sean does the same, copying Tom when he folds his in quarters. Sean has never really paused to think how one might go about hitting someone else with a belt before, and it's a bit of a comfort to know that there are rules, that this isn't just a free-for-all. 

"You wanna go first?" Tom asks.

Sean shrugs. "You were the one who wanted to play."

"Okay." Tom sets his jaw and takes a swing before Sean can brace himself, and the impact on his torso makes him rock back a little on his heels and curl in on himself, breath whooshing in surprise more than pain. The pain comes a second later, bright red and urgent, and yeah, just because they're doing this on purpose doesn't mean it doesn't sting like a motherfucker.

Tom meets his eye and Sean nods, once, then swings. It goes wide at the last second, some reflex Sean didn't know he had, but Tom just takes it, hissing when the blow glances off his arm. Sean stifles down the urge to say sorry; this is the whole point of the game.

Tom's next swing lands on his thigh. Sean rolls with it, lashing out before the flash of pain fades, and Tom responds quickly in kind. There's no room for thinking in this game, just swinging and bracing yourself and swearing when a blow hits too close to the last one. Sean finds himself keeping count, a little string of numbers in his head to mirror the rhythm of their bodies. There's a little pang of dread each time Tom raises his arm, mirrored by a spark of accomplishment when each impact fades to a dull burn and it wasn't more than he could take. Sean's whole skin is humming, and his shoulders are feeling the strain, and for the first time in days he doesn't feel cranky or tired or miserable, he's just _doing_.

"Turn," Tom says after the twelfth round. It takes a second for the words to catch up to Sean's sluggish brain, but he turns, presents the unmarked skin of his back for Tom to wale into. 

Tom turns of his own accord when it's Sean's turn, and Sean hits him across the shoulders. Thirteen. It's different like this, slowed down from the hit-hit-hit pace of before, but with a little effort Sean can still zone out on it. It's better when he can't see the belt coming anyway, all sharp shock and heady rush of _not so bad, still in the game_ with no involuntary flinching in anticipation. Tom lands blows on his back, his shoulders, the backs of his arms. The one that lands on the back of his thigh nearly makes his knees buckle, but he stays upright. Still in the game.

"That's it, I'm out," Tom says, after Sean lands one square across his back. "You win." His breathing is uneven and his eyes are a little glassy. There are uneven pink marks fading all over his front. 

It takes Sean a second to register that the rhythm of the game has stopped, but then he nods. Words seem really far away right now. No more hitting. That's probably not a bad idea. It's weird seeing Tom look like that now that they've stopped, though Sean supposes he looks no different. He drops down onto the couch, hissing at the rough fabric on his sensitive skin, and tips his head back against the cushion. He hears water running, so Tom must have gone into the bathroom, but distance and time feel like really loose concepts right now. His whole body feels loose right now, sore but far away. 

That night, Sean's mind doesn't dwell on anything at all between waking and sleeping.

 

They never discuss it after that, and Sean never thanks Tom, even though it feels like he should. Tom can probably tell that he accomplished whatever he'd been aiming for, though, because Sean's a million times less cranky and it shows. It's like his mind's been jostled out of the groove it had been stuck in — all the images, all the stories he doesn't want to write are still there, but for a while he doesn't have to do anything with them. He goes to shows with Tom, he goes out drinking with people from work, he runs errands and sits at home watching movies and when he does feel like writing, he can work on the safe stuff. Silly stupid songs to make Tom laugh, sappy love songs that make Tom ask him if he has secret ambitions to be in a radio band that he hasn't been telling Tom about. 

It's only when they start writing for Howl in earnest that Sean starts slipping back into it. He spends a lot more late nights hunched over his notebook and his acoustic, and he's sure Tom notices, but it's easy to say he's worried about the album and let it go at that. It's true, and Tom accepts it because they both want this album to be their best. If Tom notices that it takes a lot longer now before Sean plays rough drafts for him, and if he's a lot testier when Tom makes suggestions, he doesn't say anything.

Sometimes when it's three in the morning and they've spent the past two days on a song that only gets worse the more they work on it, Tom pulls Sean into his arms and buries his face in his hair. "There will be more," he says, and Sean nods. It's like he can't stop now, prying the nightmare images apart and looking inside to see what makes them tick, but he's afraid that once he runs out of those there won't be anything left. Now that he's tackling head-on what he always danced around, what comes next? Tom's arms are tight around him, though, and he has faith where Sean does not. That has to be enough.

 

Rent's cheaper split three ways, and gradually the weeks where they had to choose between booze and groceries fade into distant memory. Living with Ryan is exciting, if only because it brings it home how this is really happening. They've played a few shows, and they're more than halfway done with the album. Not all the way done, Sean is always fast to point out, and once they finalize the tracklist they'll still have to finish recording everything, but they're getting there.

It really doesn't make sense that Sean should feel stifled with one more person in their apartment, especially not when that other person is _in their band_ , but he'll hear Ryan talking on the phone in the next room over or even just moving around, and he can't work. He takes to walking through their neighborhood in the evening, and writing in the mornings when he doesn't have work, before everyone's awake. 

He comes home one afternoon to Tom sitting at the kitchen table, newspaper spread in front of him and a handle of vodka conspicuously placed in the center of the table.

"Sit," Tom says.

"What's going on?" Sean asks. He sits.

"You're taking a break," Tom says. "And I'm taking a break from stressing about you stressing out."

"But we don't even have all the songs," Sean starts, because it doesn't make _sense_ to take a break before they have all the songs, and they can't finish songs if Sean doesn't start them.

"No, but one evening won't make a difference. I think we both need to just...step back," Tom says.

Sean bites his lip, and Tom gives him a look that says he wasn't done talking yet.

"I told Ryan to go spend the night with Nick, so he won't be back. I figure we could either get shitfaced —" he nods toward the handle of vodka "— or play the pain game again. That seemed to work last time."

"But if Ryan's not here..." he says. When Ryan's there they mostly just hang out, but with a whole night to themselves they could conceivably work through...Sean doesn't want to put a number on how much they could get through and jinx it, but they're so close. 

"Maybe _I_ need to get drunk. Or, you know," Tom says, arching an eyebrow.

Sean knows. He hadn't thought the other thing was still on the table, but he could never forget that white noise feeling in his head, the way everything had seemed so uncomplicated for a while after.

"Yeah, I want to play the game," he says, and across the table Tom lets out a breath.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"I didn't know if it was too weird for you last time," Tom says, shifting uncomfortably. "Me just springing that on you, and then you were so _quiet_. Usually there's a lot more shit-talking."

"Oh." Sean takes a moment to digest this information. It hadn't occurred to him that there was a wrong way to play TAI's kinky endurance game. "Was it too weird for you?" 

Tom shakes his head. "I think I like your way better. It was a good different."

"Well, then. After you," Sean says, pushing his chair back from the table and ushering Tom through to the living room.

It's the same as last time — folded belts, the rhythm of hit-trade-hit-trade that leaves marks on their skin and no room for thoughts in Sean's head. Tom caves well before Sean is ready to stop, declaring him the winner and crouching down to check the time on his phone. 

"We could still get drunk," he says, snapping his phone shut and tossing his bangs out of his eyes to look up at Sean. 

Something about the curve of Tom's back with all the red belt marks showing, the way he's hunched down so small, makes something ugly twist in Sean's gut. It would be so easy to keep beating someone until it was more than they could take, until they did that on instinct, rolled up small and tiny just to get away from you — except they couldn't get away, not until you said so. It would be so easy to _possess_ someone like this, take and control them utterly, and he and Tom have just been playing at it like a game. Sean holds his belt out to Tom with a shaking hand.

"Can we keep going? I mean, can you — I'm not done yet." _It was supposed to push all this shit away, not bring it right to the surface,_ Sean wants to say, but he can't find the words. 

Tom stands and takes the belt from Sean. "How will you know when you are done?" he asks slowly.

Sean's whole body is shaking, he can feel it. "I can take a lot more, just - you'll just have to stop when you think it's enough. I don't think I'll be able to say."

Tom takes a long look at him, but whatever he sees doesn't make him say no.

"It has to hurt," Sean says. "I have to see how much is too much."

"Get on your hands and knees," Tom says, clearing a couple magazines and an empty popcorn bowl from the couch.

Sean scrambles to comply, nearly giving his knees couch burn as he does so.

"Stay still," Tom says, and then he hits him.

It's ten times more intense than before, both because everywhere Tom hits him is already tender and because it's coming _fast_ , no pausing to take turns, just the sound of Tom's breathing and the soft whistle of the belt through the air. Sean physically can't hold onto any emotions under the onslaught. Not guilt or shame or horror over what he might have been able to do, not worry over the album or dread at running out of ideas, not anything. The only thing is the spreading burn after the jolt of each blow, and the knowledge that he's taken one more and he isn't broken down yet.

"Sean. Sean. Sean!" Sean only realizes Tom's saying his name after the third or fourth time, and it only registers that the hitting has stopped when he blinks and sees the belt resting on the couch in front of him.

"You with me?" Tom asked.

"Mmhm," Sean says, letting his head drop back down. At some point he ended up on his elbows with his face mostly in the couch cushion, and it's comfortable enough to just stay there.

"I'll be right back," Tom says.

Sean is barely aware of Tom being away before he's back, tucking himself onto the couch next to Sean and easing Sean's head onto his lap. He pats something cool and damp slowly across Sean's back, and Sean groans.

"Shh, shh," Tom says, followed by a string of nonsense that Sean mostly tunes out. He's warm, and his whole body is buzzing, deep into his bones. He feels like he might not even have any bones, like maybe he'll have to stay here in Tom's lap forever. That would be okay, he thinks.

"You did so good," Tom is saying. He's petting Sean's hair now, fingers combing through the sweaty strands. "You took it so well." He sounds kind of amazed.

Sean makes a happy sound in his throat. He'd push up against Tom's hand, but his head feels all floaty and disconnected from the rest of him, and it's not worth the energy to figure out how to move. He took it all, though, that's the important part, and he's still here.

"We should get you some aloe or something, I don't even know," Tom says. He presses the wet cloth to Sean's hot skin again. "Fuck, Sean."

Sean can hear the admiration laced in with the disbelief. "'S not so bad," he manages.

"It will be," Tom says.

Sean loses track of how long they stay there like that, him drifting and Tom petting him. 

"Can you walk?" Tom asks eventually.

Sean shakes his head against Tom's thigh, then reconsiders. "Maybe if you help." 

Tom helps him upright, then helps him down the short hall to his bedroom and into bed. Tom crawls into bed behind Sean, and Sean hums contentedly. 

"Stay," he says, unnecessarily, and Tom wraps an arm around him.

"Never letting you do it alone," he mumbles into the short hairs at the back of Sean's neck, and Sean believes him.


End file.
